This month saw the sale, by StacksBowers, of the Rosenmann and Ellicott Collections of Latin American banknotes at the NYINC. These were extremely impressive collections, both in rarity and grade, however given some of the prices realised completion of this Set may be more Impossible than I thought . At the moment, earlier Brazilian and Venezuelan notes also seem to be very popular everywhere with my bids not even coming close to the final price.

For some unknown reason I had also missed Costa Rica off the country list, odd, as I have some notes in my collection from there with the modern ones being very colourful. This ‘oversight’ would also not have helped in completing the Set!

Current status of the Impossible Set can be found at:-

This month saw five more examples added to the Set, these were from Brazil-Banco Central do Brasil, Chile-Banco de Curico, El Salvador-Banco Central de Reserva de El Salvador, Nicaragua-Banco Agricola-Mercantil and Peru-Banco de Arequipa. This brought the total number of notes to 20, so at this rate 30 or 40 years should do it . The Chilean note was my first note with counterfoils attached and thus very different to the way things are done now. One of the things I find interesting about this period is the numerous currencies and the odd denominations that you sometimes get – the Peruvian note is for 40 centavos and is still my only note of this value.

Putting the comments together for the Banks, and the individual notes, has just highlighted that the information gaps in the usual references are not restricted to the small, short-lived banks – means lots of work to do but that is part of the fun, hopefully descriptions will improve as the Set progresses.